


i just lose my nerve

by SafelyCapricious



Series: i put a spell on you [9]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, F/M, Magical Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-19 20:01:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7375498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SafelyCapricious/pseuds/SafelyCapricious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I don’t like him,” Fitz says when she returns from the water closet. He’s sitting on the floor of the tiny guest room, paper and books surround him, covering every surface but where she was sitting.</p><p>Jemma sighs and carefully settles back into the empty space, but before she can voice her thought (‘I know’), he’s continuing.</p><p>The Modern-Magic AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	i just lose my nerve

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt: Grant+Jemma “It wasn’t supposed to happen like that.” from JD, only I changed that to this. <3 
> 
> I hope you all enjoy!
> 
> Also, I'm _finally_ catching up on replying to comments, so if you see a couple in your email, that'll be why. Be not alarmed.

“I don’t like him,” Fitz says when she returns from the water closet. He’s sitting on the floor of the tiny guest room, paper and books surround him, covering every surface but where she was sitting.

Jemma sighs and carefully settles back into the empty space, but before she can voice her thought (‘I know’), he’s continuing.

“I don’t like him, but I know that you do. And if you’re sure about him – if you’re completely sure – I’ll help you.” He’s looking at her, so serious, and she resists the urge to look at the mess around them – what has he been doing if _not_ helping? She must make a face because his twists up into a scowl and he says, without any heat, “Shut up.”

Leaning forward she can just barely lay a hand on his knee without having to brace herself against the floor, and she does, meeting his eyes seriously – because he deserves that and so much more. “I know, Leo, and I appreciate it. I really do.” She leans back and taps her fingers against her knee before shrugging. “But…I’m not _sure_ – I don’t –“ she takes a deep breath and tries to organize her thoughts, “Do you remember when we were fifteen and thought we were in love with each other? We just took it for granted and started dating and –“

The strangled laugh he makes sums up her feelings well and she smiles at him and shrugs.

“I _don’t_ feel like that. I’m not mistaking fraternal for romantic, and I’m certainly _intrigued_ by the possibility – but we’ve never even kissed. What if I just want to be his friend and am just reading it all wrong again?”

Fitz snorts. “Well, he is definitely not seeing you as a friend but…I guess you’d better be sure. Because I am going to kidnap you and take you to your crazy cousins if you’re willing to bind yourself to him without being sure.”

Jemma feels like she could cry with relief, but she knows how uncomfortable Fitz gets with that sort of thing so she bites her lip and sniffles a little and nods. “Okay. Lets finish working on this – we have the three possible plans already, but we cannot move forward with those without knowing what ceremony his family uses but what if we, instead, focus on binding them more? If it’s the threat of them then there should be a way to deal with that _without_ making him more powerful, just stopping them from hiring others or…communicating threats.” She considers for another moment and shrugs. “Stopping their ability to verbally say it would be easy, a simple glyph on the tongue could do that, though to make it last longer than a month would be…hm.”

“Even if you decide you do want him?” Fitz asks, pausing from writing.

She nods, decisively, and says as firmly as she’s able, “Even if I decide I do want him.”

“And how,” he asks, attention only half on her as he flips through a book and writes something else down, “are you going to decide how you feel?”

She bites her lower lip and looks at the clock. She has time, still, before they’re going to meet again – five whole days worth. Time to decide. Time to work up the nerve to find out.

What she doesn’t tell Fitz is that she is physically attracted to him – she knows he doesn’t want to hear that anymore than she wants to tell him. She does want to kiss him, just to know, but she’s not sure she can find out what her real fear is – what she didn’t tell Fitz because she knew how he’d react – that he’s lying to her.

But five days. She has five days to make a spell to solve the threat of Grant’s family, five days figure out how to find out how he feels, five days to do that, and five days to find out how she feels.

***

Grant thinks he must have imagined it. But she’s staring at him expectantly and –

He moves slowly, rounding the island carefully and pulling all of his magic so tightly inside of himself that he feels blind. His plate of food is cooling across the island and he doesn’t care as pauses at the chair he’d been sitting in earlier.

He could kiss her. He’d just lean down and – but that wasn’t what she’d asked. She’d asked to kiss _him_.

He sits down, carefully. He’s afraid that if he makes any sudden movements that reality will shatter around him and he’ll hear what she actually asked and probably leave and –

“Yes,” he says, just incase he was right and she wants to kiss him. He hopes he’s right.

She watches him, fingers twisting together for a moment and then she stands. He half expects her to leave but she’s leaning over him, hands braced on the arms of the chair and –

Her lips are soft against his.

They aren’t kissing, not really, she’s just resting her mouth against his and his heart is racing.

She pulls back much too soon and he has a split second to realize what this is. This is goodbye.

His hand curls against the back of her neck and he pulls her back in, this time he kisses her – if he’s only going to get the one kiss then he’s going to make sure it’s something she’ll remember, something that will make all other kisses pale in comparison, something he’ll be able to hold tight once she’s gone. 

Her lips open under his soft pressure and he takes his time, their lips aren’t sealed so they keep breathing as his tongue explores. Her hands move to his chest and he knows she’ll be pushing him away soon so he deepens it further, her tongue darts against his and he tries to categorize what she feels like. She doesn’t taste like her magic, all he can taste is mint – likely from her brushing her teeth – and the tea he’d made for her.

She makes a noise and the pressure against his chest from her hands increases and he lets go of the back of her neck – suddenly terrified she’s scared – and leans his head back.

She stares at him, wide eyed and flushed, and he realizes she wasn’t trying to push him away.

Jemma had lost her balance, or the strength to stand or something – she’s leaning against his chest for support and – “Holy hell,” she breathes.

His hands are on her hips and he’s not sure when they got there but he doesn’t want to let go ever.

She straightens, carefully, and takes a step back and he lets her go, his magic reaching out and wrapping around her and he can taste her spice again and – it’s normal. Her magic isn’t in a riot or boiling it’s just…soft spice and warm bread.

He breathes slowly through his nose as she settles back into her chair and then, with shaking hands, reaches for her fork.

His plate slides across the island with a thought and though he doesn’t take his eyes off of her, he eats while she does.

She kissed him. She kissed him and then when he kissed her she kissed him back and she’s still here.

Something tight in his chest releases and he closes his eyes on an exhale. She’s here.

She’s still _here_.

“You don’t need more power,” she says, brushing crumbs off of her hands and onto the plate.

He considers her for a moment, because he doesn’t care about any of this, all he wants to talk about is the kiss but – “No,” he says, tilting his head. “I don’t need more power. I just need Christian unable to move against anyone ever again.”

She bites her lower lip and he wishes, fiercely, that he’d done that when he’d had the chance. The kiss had been too brief and all physical signs that it had happened have faded. “Okay,” she says, and then she repeats it softer, “okay.”

***

Antoine isn’t entirely sure what he’s seeing and he finds himself frozen, halfway out from behind the counter that separates the front of the shop from the back, knuckles turning white against the handles of the tray he’s holding. Jemma and Ward’s power are so combined that it’s a swirl of purple magenta instead of – 

What the fuck has happened?

He has a frantic moment of worry – that somehow Ward has managed to bind Jemma to him without any of the ceremony those spells always require – and then she settles in her chair and he can see that instead of mixing, properly, they’re dancing. His magic and hers – his red so thin it’s pink twining around her deep purple – and her purple wrapping around him. He takes another deep breath and starts to move forward again when he starts to notice other signs, like how she seems unaware of what her magic is doing and he certainly isn’t.

He should still be angry – Ward _clearly_ knows what he’s doing and he doesn’t think Jemma does but…his magic is opening up so many holes for hers that it’s remarkable.

 Antoine has always admired how tight Ward’s shields are – if nothing else about the man is particularly worthy of admiration, that is. And it’s not that he thinks anything else could get through them, but it’s a surprising amount of vulnerability to allow, to show. Especially because he _knows_ the red practitioner is aware that Antoine’s has the sight.

Jemma could kill him right now. Well, if she knew the right spell. Which she might, he thinks as he shoots her a look as he reaches the side of the table, Jemma knows some very bizarre spells and potions for ‘academic’ reasons – but she’d never do it. But still, to show that kind of trust…

It could be a trick. A clever way of Ward trying to appease him and Bobbi before stealing Jemma away, forever.

He snatches the spell off the table when it comes, half to stop himself from threatening the strongest person at the table and half to find out just how likely it is that he’s playing all of them right now.

It’s gonna break Jemma’s heart if he’s not serious, and Antoine isn’t sure if she’s realized that yet but he can see it, now, clear as day.

He reads the spell Ward brought and…huh.

Well.

He looks up as he passes it off to Bobbi – Lance isn’t going to be anything but abrasive today – paying even closer attention to what Ward’s magic is doing. He watches it and now he can see how it’s _not_ covering the cracks or weak points in her shielding, but rather gently nudging her magic to seal over here and there and – huh.

And when she leaves the table – quickly – she carries his magic with her and he doesn’t seem bothered at the loss, even as hers has pulled away from him with distance.

Well. Maybe they aren’t going to have to deal with Jemma’s broken heart after all.

***

Grant isn’t sure what he feels – Jemma’s spell is incredible. For all that she denied it, it’s a masterful, deft piece of spell work and it took her more than a little time to work on. It also shows how seriously she took what he’d told her – even before this morning, even before she had all the details and knew it was a threat to _her_ he was trying to stop.

But she’s also refusing the binding.

Well, she hasn’t explicitly said she’s refusing, but it’s not going to happen and it’s because of her spell that it’s not and he cannot help but wonder, even as her magic lays heavy on his tongue, if _that_ was why she made the spell. So she wouldn’t have to have that connection with him.

This wasn’t how he wanted to be bonded to her – though he still wants it so much his fingers twitch with the urge to touch her – but it wasn’t supposed to happen like _this_. There wasn’t supposed to be a threat when he made the offer – it should’ve been when he knew she’d say yes. He’d thought she would for the safety of others, before, and then after the kiss, he’d thought she’d say yes for _him_.

But she hadn’t. She’d brought out this spell and –

Maybe he was wrong.

Maybe the kiss _was_ goodbye.

His dragon digs his claws into his chest and roars, silent in his devastating loss.

He could take her, once her friends have completed this spell for him. It would be terribly easy to steal her away – he’d probably have to leave Providence, not because her friends _could_ get her back, but just because they would keep trying and it would doubtless be annoying. 

She giggles at something Skye says, the other woman leaning too close to her for Grant to catch the words, and he feels his heart stutter at the sound.

 He could never take her away – he could never do anything to her that would steal the laughter from her.

 He vows, then and there, if only to himself as he continues to discuss details with Trip, to make the most of the last few days around her and then leave when she asks him to. To bask in her presence, to try to make her laugh, to make sure she’s gotten more reliable at shielding before he goes.

 He’d wanted, before, to ask her about the kiss, once this was all done – he’d been wanting to ask her about the kiss since the kiss but she’d asked him questions about the spell book instead, flipping from this page to that and watching him with bright lively eyes and he hadn’t wanted to interrupt her joy. Now he’s even more glad he resisted the urge – he doesn’t think he’d be able to sit here, happy, if he’d heard her say she was bidding him farewell so soon.

She laughs again and a smile pulls at his mouth even as he feels another piece break off his heart and fall into his stomach.

**Author's Note:**

> My writing tumblr can be found [here](http://capriciouswrites.tumblr.com/)! Come say hi and give me a prompt.


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